pigeonburger
7hr ago
Absolutely get a car, a used one, in the "lease return" range (3-5 years old) of a popular, reliable Japanese brand. Toyota, Honda, Subaru. They'll be fairly expensive at first, but if you need to sell them in 2 years they'll barely have depreciated.
pigeonburger
12hr ago
I don't think there's much that's deliberate in him anymore, he was already lolcow levels of crazy before Trump's first presidency (remember "JUST DO IT"?), but that just pushed him off the edge and he has yet to recover. He's kind of the negative universe Kanye West.
pigeonburger
17hr ago
It marks the end of the genre I think of as 80s action, creates the 'modern', 90s-and-onwards genre
Yeah, Terminator 2 was the template until The Matrix came out.
pigeonburger
17hr ago
What pisses me off is the constant drive to create sequels that recontextualize the originals as only one part of a larger narrative with higher stakes that is almost always less creative than the original vision. It actively damages story of the original unless you decide to be arbitrary with canon. See, for instance, Alien. The monster being just a monster that can hunt humans effectively is very good. It is actively harmed if you actually need to know that it was found because David in Alien Covenant did blah blah blah... and in Prometheus we learn that the xenomorphs are actually... None of that shit matters, let the monster be a monster, I don't WANT the answers, the unknown is better.
A sequel should be another story. For instance, in Ghostbusters II, they don't suddenly decide that actually, that Goser in first movie was just Vigo's lieutenant and now the real battle is happening. For all we know, the stakes are similar between the two movies, maybe even lower in the second one (after all, they're no longer facing a literal god of antiquity).
pigeonburger
17hr ago
Prey was pretty good. Predator Badlands went a bit too hard in the "Predator and Alien are in a share universe you guys!" direction, but at least the action was pretty good.
pigeonburger
17hr ago
I'm reminded that the US finally phased out floppy disks in the nuclear launch systems in 2019.
We're not talking 3 1/2" floppies. Not even 5 1/4", but big ol' 8" floppies.
It's not any one weapon, but a combination of factors- more satellites, better human intelligence, more stealth aircraft, better radar, more JDAMs and stand off munitions, cyberattacks, and now AI to help us identify targets
I think the main factor is the ability to do strikes. I don't mean as firing a missile from plane, that's just the culmination of the strike, but to have such a good understanding of the situation and the available materiel to plan and execute. The US is not sending a multirole fighter with a mix of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles with a goal of "go kill this person, we believe he's hiding in this building and he's behind several layers of air defences and the might have some fighters in the area. Good luck and godspeed!". The actual mission involves clockwork removal of all known obstacles and contingencies for the unknowns. So the mission will be more like "launch at 0400, at 0600 tomahawks will destroy the air defenses in grid yyy, you will then destroy the marked target between 0615 and 0700, the airfield close will be the target of another strike in the morning, in case some of the jets manage to scramble before you will have an escort of F-22s."
Planning everything like that requires time, and these strike plans can expire as targets and defenses are moved, so if you are the US you plan as many strikes as you can for the opening of the war, start with an orgy of destruction to remove as many defenses as you can so that when you run out of pre-planned strikes you don't need to be as fastidious in your planning. If you're Iran, you can't do much to stop the strikes or cause much damage to the strike forces, so you shuffle your defenses and targets around and hope that by the time the US run out of preplanned strikes, they still don't have uncontested air superiority or achieved their objectives, then the US will either have to accept more risk in their operations or slow the cadence of strikes.
Looking at your resume, I see someone I'd invite to an interview for a tech or junior sysadmin role, if we had one open (we don't right now, but we had recently, twice in the last year).
I'll ask you the three questions I always ask in interviews, maybe it will help understand how the hiring process looks like from the other side of the table:
-
A user is unable to login to their computer, list as many possible reasons as you can think of this could happen.
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Describe to me the process you go through to troubleshoot an issue you're never encountered before.
-
A piece of software on Windows crashes during a common operation, but there is no error message that pops up. Where do you go look to find more information.
Question one is an open-ended experience yardstick. Everyone who's worked operations has encountered login issues, they exist at every support "level", how many come to mind will tell me exactly how much shit you've seen. It can be as simple as "user is not entering the password correctly" and the slightly trickier "caps lock was on", then harder ones like AD account issues (lockouts) or the user might be trying to log on to an AD-joined computer with uncached credentials on a computer that isn't able to talk to a DC, the list really goes on and on... At your level, I would expect the easy "user error" ones and at least a few trickier ones.
Question two is to make sure you work in a structured way. I honestly don't really care what the process specifically is, as long as you DO have a way to untangle an issue you've never seen. I've had to work with juniors who did not have a process, and it was really annoying as they would either end up asking me every single thing or just spin their wheels making fruitless google searches with generic error messages or behaviors, before they even tried isolating the issue, eliminating possibilities, etc... If you tell me that you try to find error messages or logs that are unique to the issue, so that you can narrow your searches, that's good.
Question three, as long as it's not completely entry level, I expect you to at least go looking for log files, and ideally you'd mention the Event Viewer by name. If it's a linux position, log files and JournalD.
If I were sitting in an interview with you, if you got these three right, you'd get the thumbs up from me. If there are multiple candidates that got the thumbs up from me, then it comes down to whether I feel like you'd make our users/clients feel confident, etc...
Maybe my consulting firm is atypical since we specialize in non-tech, tricky, bespoke business software and in maintaining difficult codebases, but that has not been my experience. Devops mean the ops team has to waste more time in meetings with devs as they are involved at more steps of the process. Clients that have moved business software to the cloud needed as much or more ops support, some clients are moving those back to on-premise, and while "standard" cloud services like O365 are technically able to force multiply your ops team (less personnel required for same services), the expectations are increased to make up the difference rather than the hours cut. A small company before would not have expected the same services from 5-10 hours/week of an IT ops guy's time than they now do with Office 365.
Though as I said, my experience might be atypical. But in conservative fields outside of tech (manufacturing, agricultural, etc...), people tend to be multiple steps behind in the IT "tech tree". Most of the companies I deal with are in-between the virtualization era of IT operations and the cloud era. Mid to late 00's "tech level". None have reached the level of sophistication to employ tools like orchestration, let alone ops AI. I'm at about the mid-point of my career, so if AI starts eating all the jobs at the bleeding edge, I figure I've probably got time to reach retirement before it eats mine.
pigeonburger
5d ago
I work outside FAANG, sometimes do interviews and am involved in the hiring process and I tend to prefer 1 or 2 pages, with the most relevant information being at the top. Someone at the start of their career probably could do one page. Experience, skills, education.
I'm a (early) millenial. I failed out of college. I got into a decent career in IT ops despite it, including working at some pretty prestigious places. I didn't know a guy, at least not initially. Networking (the socializing kind, not the technical kind) is what got me my bigger breaks.
At the risk of sounding like a boomer, I still think my path would work out. Find a niche that underserved (in my case, it was secretarial support), and then learn how to do the socializing. Young people nowadays seem to expect life to be like train tracks, that it's systems that are keeping them out, that if they do the right thing the wheels will pop on top of the rails and everything will get into place. But ultimately it's all people that you need to convince. Personally, when I interview people, I don't care about education or credentials; everything I need to know, I'll figure out by talking to you.
pigeonburger
5d ago
And here's the blood boiling headline you would have just handed the press: "In a massive blow to Trump and the MAGA movement, even Republicans representatives say they are now turning away from fascism."
pigeonburger
5d ago
can tell that it's bait and that the winning move is to just simply answer in the most straingforward, simple and honest way possible
I don't think that works out either because your answer will be twisted into whatever is most convenient to the person framing it.
"Politician A says he supports position B but he voted for Bill C. We need less dishonest politicians in Washington, we need someone who not only talks the talks, but walks the walks. Vote for Politician D"
As long as there is a Bill C that can be, with the proper framing, made to seem like it's in opposition to position B (and there always is), then answering straightforwardly did nothing to help. Worse, it might make you seem gutless and insufficiently defiant to your base. Trump didn't go from laughing stock political outsider to 2 term POTUS by giving the straightforward, compliant answer to this kind of question, he got there by doubling down on "that's bait, fuck you" every time.
pigeonburger
9d ago
Not being able to see the puck to me is a weird complaint although I guess it might be valid for people not used to hockey. It's not so much that nuh-huh, you can see it, but that with a bit of awareness of the game and a decent sportscast, it's obvious where the puck is whether you see it or not. The player with the puck moves differently, other players move differently with regards to him and the camera usually follows the puck.
pigeonburger
10d ago
You do raise an interesting point that they probably go to restaurants; after all, having a access to all chefs in a city would offer more variety than a single chef would. But the situation I would imagine one would consider a private chef is for those who have a large mansion away from a large city's restaurants.
pigeonburger
10d ago
only literal billionaires have personal chefs
Why though?
I would imagine to hire a good chef that could otherwise have his own restaurant, you'd have to offer a good 6 digit salary; maybe somewhere between 200 000$ and 800 000$ depending on experience and details such as whether it's a live-in, exclusive or flexible position. Is that unattainable for mere multihectomillionaires?
For heterosexual males, the essence of the lesbian fantasy lies in watching two hot, conventionally feminine women with high sex drives have sex with one another.
I think part of the appeal, that has become mostly obsolete with the broadening of the porn offering online and with better handheld cameras, is the "implied threesome". The camera, in "straight lesbian porn", is meant to make you think it's you the viewer, you're there next to these two girls, watching them warm themselves up. You could and will join in at any moment you wish, whenever you're ready your penis is going to be a welcome addition to the fun the two girls are having. They're not gonna go "Ew, what the fuck are you doing in our bedroom naked!?" they'd go "Yay! Penis!"
Now though, with the explosion of the internet, amateur porn and amateur-inspired professional porn (stuff like camera in hand POV "gonzo" porn), you can find a lot actual threesomes which on top of the same things you see in lesbian porn and straight porn will also include acts like double blowjobs. It's not like threesomes were impossible before, but you have to take into account the difficulties of filming porn in a professional way were only increased by adding another person.
pigeonburger
10d ago
the level and pace of play actually makes it more watchable than the men's
I've been unable to watch it because I'm used to men's hockey, but I guess it might be a good on-ramp for people not already into hockey. It is overall the world's best professional sport for spectators, but the fact that somehow other sports are more popular show that there might be an issue of easing people into it. It's fast, it's strategic, it's robust, it highlights personal courage and grit, it requires its athletes to be complete well-rounded athletes instead of min-maxxing specific traits, it's exciting with games (at the pro level, not as much in the Olympics) usually ending with a close score. It hits the perfect balance of personal and team effort in success. Goals are neither infrequent (soccer) nor too frequent (basketball). The flow of the game feels mostly natural, less artificial stop and go (football, baseball). The only thing I'll grant other sports over hockey is that hockey is perhaps less relatable especially in places with less ice rinks; any kid on the planet can play pickup soccer, you just need a ball and a big enough field. Basketball you just need a ball and a court. Hockey needs a bit more than that.
pigeonburger
10d ago
More like the other way around, the bulk of the gameplay is the action RPG, so it's simplified anime MMORPG with a Factorio layer. It tries to be an "everything" game with some of the side activities. You get puzzle gameplay (nonogram/picross inspired), market trading, tower defense, relationship management/courting (giving gifts to your waifus)...
I arrived at the end of the first batch of main quest content of Arknights Endfield and while I didn't quite reach max level/endgame content yet, I think I can say that the game has been generous enough that I could make the team I wanted without having to pay anything and I'm pretty certain I'll be able to reach endgame content with that team. I did put in a lot of hours. The monetization seems well balanced in that, if I really really want to get a specific 6 star, I probably will be able to accumulate enough banner pulls to do so, but not often. However, it's less balanced in that from what I understand, one wouldn't be able to guarantee one without spending way more money than I can ever imagine spending on a virtual waifu for a game. I think it comes to about 2$ per pull, 80 pulls for a guarantee to get a 6 star that will in 50% of times be the banner one, 120 pulls for guarantee to get the banner 6 star. Maybe it'd work if you only need a bit of a boost to get your guarantee for a specific banner, but I can't imagine paying that much ever.
Not that I'd need to, the game gives you 2 pretty good 6 stars for free (Endmin and Ardelia) and playing the content over the first month I ended up with 4 extra 6 stars on top of the two they give you, and that's not counting that I got at least two duplicates in those. And even then, I could have built a team of 4 and 5 stars, they're not necessarily inferior to 6 stars, they just tend to have less dramatic designs.
The factory gameplay is addictive and creates reasons to log in every day, but I'm looking forward for more stuff to be unlocked in the 2nd region, as the game is hinting at more content for the factory that isn't quite there yet. There's factory-related concepts I've barely started interacting with. Some of the side content is less fun, though thankfully can mostly be ignored for now. The tower defense stuff isn't very well implemented to my taste.
The main gameplay itself is fine, it's a like a more action oriented, simplified MMORPG. What is really next level for this game though are the production values. I don't know how much other games in this genre (single player, action RPG gacha games, like Genshin Impact) made but the company behind Endfield clearly believes they can make a lot of money because this is not a cheap cash grab. Almost everything is voiced, and that's a lot of voiced lines... Like, a LOT. Over I think 4 languages? And it's pretty good voice acting too, I was surprised to hear the people in the 2nd region, which is "china themed" have the very distinctive accent that native chinese speakers who speak good english end up having. Animation are lush and high quality. Graphics are as good as they could be while maintaining the ability to be played on either computer or mobile.
pigeonburger
12d ago
Yes, but that's not what ultimately matters. The Fremen victory in Dune is not secured by fighting men in the field, it's secured by long term plans and a superior understanding of the ecology (Paul realising that the Fremen held the spice cycle hostage with the water they had been stockpiling all that time). The fighting men only had to win until Paul could expose their actual victory to all the other actors. Without that, the long-term prospects of the Fremen are dim, even if they can keep winning fights in the desert.
everything that had a movie very loosely based on
That is a lot of stories though. PKD might be one of, if not the, most adapted writer of the 20th century.
*EDIT: Ok, checked and he's nowhere near Stephen King in how many works he has had adapted.
pigeonburger
15d ago
Second Variety has been adapted in a movie, if you enjoyed that. The movie is good cheap 90s sci-fi jank, called Screamers.
pigeonburger
17d ago
I would say I enjoy watching most Olympic sports, and most sports in general, in a limited fashion. Really following a sport is a time consuming, brain capacity consuming proposition, personally I have only limited space in my life for it so I chose to follow the best one (hockey). Following a sport adds a layer of enjoyment to the spectacle, you get to enjoy the "storylines" of it, but there is still, to me at least, the raw enjoyment of the game itself. That has its limitations, without the context the enjoyment fades, so I have it in me to watch one or two american/canadian football games a year, or Olympic sports once every two years, but it's not just hype, the sports are genuinely mildly enjoyable to watch to me.
If the plan is to enjoy it, oh absolutely. OP just didn't strike as someone who wants a fun car since I figured he'd already have a car or know he wants one if he was.
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